West Africa’s military coup regimes now have their own common military defense agreement. On Saturday September 16, the ministerial delegations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced in Bamako the signing of a charter establishing a defensive alliance. The union is not surprising: Mali and Burkina Faso, both led by soldiers following coups in 2020 and then 2022, quickly displayed their solidarity with the generals of Niamey after their own putsch in July 26 last year.
This “Liptako-Gourma charter” thus gives birth to the new “Alliance of Sahel States” (AES), rejoices on the social network X (formerly Twitter) the head of the junta of Mali, Assimi Goita. The agreement has 17 points, including the objective of ensuring military defense in the event of an attempt to bring down these regimes.
A defense against the threats of ECOWAS
The aim of this charter is above all “to establish an architecture of collective defense and mutual assistance”, quotes the AFP. According to the press agency, it thus provides in its article 6 that “any attack on the sovereignty and integrity of the territory of one or more contracting parties will be considered as an aggression against the other parties and will engage a duty of assistance and relief of all parties, individually or collectively.
This includes in particular “the use of armed force to restore and ensure security within the space covered by the Alliance”. A commitment by Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to defend themselves which directly refers to threats from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Following the coup d’état of July 26 in Niger, the latter in fact asked the military authorities to “restore constitutional order immediately” and to release the deposed Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum, threatened with prosecution for “high treason ” and still a prisoner of the junta. Without a response, the West African organization has repeatedly threatened armed intervention.
However, neighboring Burkina and Mali believe that a military operation against their country would be an “illegal and senseless aggression” and have promised an “immediate response” to any aggression. This new military alliance therefore seems to be the realization of this promise of a military response.
If we believe the online media Burkina 24which shares the charter in full in a PDF document Echoing information from AFP, article 5 of this charter nevertheless specifies that such an attack should ideally be resolved “by favoring peaceful and diplomatic means”, before the use of force.
A fight against jihadism without the French army
The rest of the charter presented by Burkina 24 then details future relations between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, urging these three countries not to attack each other. Article 11 also keeps the door open to the accession of “any other State sharing the same geographical, political and socio-cultural realities”.
Above all, the fifth point of the charter specifies the other objective displayed by the new alliance: mutual military assistance must also be triggered in the face of an “armed rebellion”. “Our priority is the fight against terrorism in the three countries,” declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mali, Abdoulaye Diop. The charter in fact bears the name of the Liptako-Gourma region, bordering Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which has been ravaged by jihadism in recent years.
This new Alliance of Sahel States (AES) thus seems to mark an end to the military cooperation of these three countries with their former Western allies, previously united in the G5 Sahel military organization since 2014 to fight against jihadism. After the departure of troops from Mali in 2022 then from Burkina Faso in February 2023, the new government in Niamey in turn indicated at the beginning of September that negotiations are underway for a rapid withdrawal of the approximately 1,500 French soldiers present in the country.
But the trio of military regimes seems to be losing patience. After Nigerien accusations of an imminent “aggression” by France against Niger, Burkina Faso announced on Friday the expulsion of the military attaché of the French embassy, accused of “subversive activities”.